The leaner, meaner Brandon Vera out to prove the original Truth

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By Chuck Mindenhall

You might remember how after UFC President Dana White gave his now-famous “do you want to be a fighter” speech on the original Ultimate Fighter series that things picked up. Guys from both sides reflected, refocused and, with their hearts being put into question, responded as if the gauntlet had been thrown down. Just like that, all the petty things they’d quibbled over became sizably more petty, and fighting everyone’s raison d’être.

It sure made for good television.

But what made it a great crossover moment for people new to the sport was that for a specific few seconds, when the camera panned past the faces of those in question, the whole psychology of why fighters fight became almost tangible—fighters are forever out to prove the impossible thing that burns inside of them. It’s an impassioned form of communication. Usually you see this more literally in the Octagon; but this once you could see it in eyes as they went through the process of redetermination.

For the soon to be 31-year-old Brandon Vera, that moment arrived just days after his last fight this past July with Reese Andy. All of a sudden he has the gnawing look of a man with something to prove.

“I’ve never told anybody this, but, I’d been treating this whole thing as kind of a hobby,” says Vera from his training camp in Camp Springs, Maryland. “The best quote I heard was, ‘If you treat business as a hobby, it’s going to pay you like a hobby—but if you treat your business as a business, it’s going to pay you like a business.’ I’d been treating it as a hobby. I wasn’t treating myself as a professional fighter.’”

This realization came to Vera only days after he’d decisioned the largely unknown Andy in his light heavyweight debut in Las Vegas, a fight he calls “lackluster” because it didn’t come close to the expectations of his fans, trainers or even himself. Especially after having lost consecutive fights in the heavyweight division against Tim Sylvia and Fabricio Werdum.

“It happened because of my performance,” he says. “I felt flat, like I had no energy at all. It was like I had the flu out there. That’s the best way I can describe it . . . like there was somebody on my back holding me. I just couldn’t get it going.”

In no small part due to Andy, who proved to be a game opponent for Vera, not the pushover some anticipated.

“That dude’s tough, man,” Vera says. “He’s got a strong neck, and I kneed him two or three times, good shots, and he just took them. He was tough for sure.”

So it wasn’t a reflection of Andy, but how does a victory—even a lackluster one—become the catalyst for a major change in attitude?

When the president of the UFC gets to wondering where “the bastard” went in the press conference.

“It was a couple of things,” Vera says. “One was the fight with Reese Andy. That fight sucked, man. And the second was when Dana White asked me in the press conference ‘where’s that kid at? Where’s that bastard? I want that guy back!’ And I went home, and I sat there and thought about it. Yeah, I won, but it was a [crappy] win, it wasn’t like I could be happy and could go out partying. It was like an epiphany.”

The “kid” that White was wondering about won his first eight pro fights in the heavyweight division, including first round wins over TUF 8 coach and former heavyweight champion Frank Mir (TKO, strikes) at UFC 65 and Assuerio Silva (submission, choke). He was all attitude, sharp far-striking limbs and chin, with enough technique as a wrestler and Muay Thai fighter to give opponents the fidgets. The Vera of late had become . . . well, conspicuously less Vera-like.

Sure, there were legitimate excuses readily at his disposal to use, such as the broken hand he suffered in his high-profile fight against Sylvia in the first round and the controversial stoppage at UFC 85 in London against Werdum—but they were still, admittedly, excuses. Crutches that, just like those fights, are now things he happily puts in the rear-view mirror.

Enter the transformed Brandon Vera (9-2), a man with all the attitude and twice the technique.

He’s training with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu guru Lloyd Irvin in preparation for his October 18 fight with Keith “the Dean of Mean”at UFC 89—and he’s feeling reborn. Mention the prospect of a wild rock-em-sock-em war with the hard-striking kickboxer Jardine, and he gets positively excited. He refers to himself as “the old-school Vera,” and is walking around at 202 pounds. He’s going back to the UK where the taxes are harsh but the Tower of . . .

Wait, wait, wait . . . a guy who had to cut weight for the first time in nine years only two months back, 28 pounds in three weeks, is now walking around at 202 on his own free will?

“Yeah, I am at 202 right now,” he says. “My whole outlook on everything has changed. I am serious about this stuff now. It’s my diet, and my strength and conditioning coach, the 2004 Judo Olympian Rhadi Ferguson, it’s everything. It’s going to be bad for the 205ers, man. Bad. News.”

And the next 205er on the docket is Jardine (13-5-1), a Greg Jackson submission fighter who has beaten some of the best in the division in Chuck Liddell and Forrest Griffin, yet who is coming off a spectacular knockout loss at the hands of Wanderlei Silva at UFC 84. Vera knows that he wasn’t seeing the best Jardine in that particular battle, and expects to encounter an aggressive fighter who’ll want to make a case for his own bounce-back ability.

“He has a wild style,” he says, quick to add that he believes Jardine’s chin is still his biggest weakness. “There are a lot of holes in it. But that style creates awkward situations for almost every fighter he’s encountered. I know he’s going to come out and try and push the pace. I know he thinks that I am going to be out of shape and he’ll want to break my cardio before the second round. I know all that for sure. But he’s going to find out something different.”

Here’s his chance to prove it.

And that’s why fighters fight.

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